How to Control Who Can View Your Documents in Displayr

When you publish documents for multiple clients, you will need to be able to control which clients have access to each document. This way, one client does not get to see the results for your other client! In this article, I will show you how to set up your account and documents to control who gets to see each document.

If you need to restrict access to individual pages within a document so that different groups of people see different pages when they log in to view, please read How to Control Who Can View Pages in Your Document.

Requirements

• A multi-user Displayr account with at least two user groups. For more information, see: How to Change to a Multi-User Account
• You must be part of the Administrator user group.
• Familiarity with User Group permissions. See How to Manage User Groups and Permissions in Displayr for more details.

Method

The basic process for controlling who can view your documents is as follows:

1. Create a User Group for each of your clients.
2. Assign people to the relevant user groups. This is done when you invite new people to join your account, and you may also change the settings for existing users.
3. Set up access permission settings for each document.
4. Ensure your published document requires users to log in with a password.

Part 1: Create user groups

There are three default groups in Displayr:

• Administrators - these people can access all documents and settings in your account.
• Create/Edit Documents - by default, these people can create, edit, and view all documents in your account.
• View Documents - by default, these people can view but not edit all documents in your account.

If you are restricting access to users, then do not add restricted users to any of these default groups, as they will be able to access other documents.

The first step is to work out how you want to group the people in your organization, and then create groups to reflect that desired structure.

In my example, I will create two user groups in my account.

To add a group:

1. While logged into Displayr, click on the initials icon in the top right and select Account settings.
2. Go to the Settings tab.
3. Scroll to the Groups section and select + New Group.
4. Enter a name for the Group.
5. OPTIONAL: Untick Users in this group can Explore if you are filtering a dashboard based on user login.
6. Click Save.

I have added two new groups to my account, called Department A and Department B. My intention is to assign any staff who should have access only to work done by Department A to that group, and similarly for people in Department B. The Groups section in my account settings now looks like this:

Part 2: Assign users to groups

Now that groups have been defined, new users can be assigned to those groups. When you invite someone to join your account, you can specify which groups they are in. You can also change which groups someone is in at a later time.

If you are inviting a new user to your account, you can choose the group(s) that the user belongs to at that time. For example, when inviting my first user, Chris A, I assign him to Department A and fill out the fields below before clicking Save (which will send the invitation).

If you need to assign or change which group(s) an individual user is part of later on:

1. On the Settings page, scroll to the Users section.
2. Click the person's name.
3. Changing their User Group membership selections, just as in the screenshot above.
4. Click Save.

If you want to update users in bulk via the Group settings:

1. On the Settings page, scroll to the Groups section.
2. Select the group you want to modify.
3. Click + Add Member.
4. Select the user(s) you wish to add to the group. Hold down the Ctrl key to select multiple.
5. OPTIONAL: To remove a user from a group, click the red X in the Action column.
6. Click Save.

Part 3: Choose which groups can view your documents

With users and groups defined, you can now choose who has access to your documents. These steps should be included in the workflow of anyone responsible for creating new documents in your company. Permissions can be set at either the folder or document level depending on your requirements. See How to Manage User Groups and Permissions in Displayr for more details.

Folder-based permissions

1. On your Documents page, click New > Folder (if you don’t already have an appropriate folder to use).
2. Tick the checkbox adjacent to the document on hover, click Move, and select your folder then Move.
3. Click the Folder Settings icon if you need to set or update permissions, for example, by selecting Configure access to this folder and adding the appropriate user group to View only.
4. Press Save.

Document-based permissions

1. Click Document Settings and select Document Settings.
2. Expand the Access section.
3. Under View access, select the client user group(s). Do NOT add the client group to the View and edit access section, as this will permit them to edit the document.
4. Click Save.

For this document, I have added the Department A user group to the groups that are allowed to view the document.

Part 4: Publishing your document

For these settings to apply, you need to ensure that your document requires a person to log in with their password to view it. This is a choice that you make the first time you publish your document via Share > Publish to web > Login and password required in the toolbar.

Now, when Chris A from Department A logs in to Displayr, she'll see any documents that Department A has been given access to. She won't be able to edit the documents, only view them.

So remember, there are a few key steps to restricting access on a page-by-page basis. First, you need to create user groups for each of your client departments. Second, you need to make sure that you create accounts for the people who will view the documents, and that each person is assigned only to the group for the respective department. Finally, you need to set access within each document to specify which client department can view that document, unless you move the documents to folders which already inherit the appropriate user group.

Next

How to Control Who Can View Pages in Your Document

How to Create User Groups

How to Add Users to a Group

Watch our New Users and Permissions video